Oswego Alumni Magazine » GOLDhttp://www.oswego.edu/magazine
Oswego Alumni Magazine Wordpress siteFri, 30 Jan 2015 20:35:19 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.0.1GOLD – Sarah Michelle Argus ’12http://www.oswego.edu/magazine/2014/12/30/6228/
http://www.oswego.edu/magazine/2014/12/30/6228/#commentsTue, 30 Dec 2014 20:08:16 +0000http://www.oswego.edu/magazine/?p=6228Sarah Michelle Argus ’12 took her degree in graphic design to New York City, where she will finish a master’s degree from the Pratt Institute. Her talent has already gotten the attention of Barnes and Noble, which chose her work as part of its line of back-to-school stationery. Her designs adorn a pencil pouch, spiral sketchbook and a journal available now in stores and on the Barnes and Noble website. Sarah came to Oswego from Cicero-North Syracuse High School, and her brother, Josh Argus ’15, is now at Oswego.

Oswego Magazine: How did you hook up with Barnes and Noble?

Sarah Argus: I worked all summer (2013) creating 20 designs to hypothetically produce for Barnes and Noble. At the very end of the summer, right before fall, we went in and pitched them at their corporate office in New York. The story behind that is kind of crazy, actually.

OM: I like crazy. Tell me about that.

SA: Like I said, we had no idea who these hypothetical Barnes and Noble people were. We were told to create a nice presentation. We did know they were going to have a projector. That’s all we knew. So, I created this really nice Keynote presentation. And we get to the meeting, the buyers are late, we can’t get the computer to work, and the projector wouldn’t connect to the PC. It was just bad luck from the start. But I had learned over the past not to just rely on digital technology and had three paper copies of my presentation printed off. It wasn’t anything fancy. It was just quick printed from my computer at home, but I brought them just in case.

OM: Excellent! That’s the Oswego education right there!

SA: It is the Oswego education! So that’s how I presented my stuff. And I was the only person to bring paper copies. I stepped up to the plate and they’re like, “Well, we have another meeting in 30 minutes, and there are seven of you. So you have about three minutes to present your idea.” I had 20 ideas to present in three minutes! It was scary as hell, to be honest. My heart was beating so fast that I don’t even remember how I got through the presentation. I walked out thinking, “Oh my god, that was one of the craziest and most exhilarating experiences of my entire life.” Then I got an email saying they liked one of my designs, and that’s how the whole thing started.

SA: It was a very rewarding experience to see something I had worked so hard on, on the Barnes and Noble website. So I took a picture and I Instagrammed it, probably within the first 10 seconds of knowing that my stuff was on the market. All of Brooklyn, that’s where I live right now, was sold out within two weeks.

OM: How did your art evolve from high school to Oswego?

SA: Oswego taught me everything. I thought I was hot (stuff) because I knew all the programs. I remember my class with Amy Bartell ’86, Introduction to Graphic Design and I realized I knew nothing. Sure, I knew what programs did and how to play with them, but she was the one who really taught me how to hone my skills and how to really use the programs.

—Edwin Acevedo M’09

]]>http://www.oswego.edu/magazine/2014/12/30/6228/feed/0Success in the City Events Enable Alumni to Brush Up Personal Brandhttp://www.oswego.edu/magazine/2014/08/11/success-in-the-city-events-enable-alumni-to-brush-up-personal-brand/
http://www.oswego.edu/magazine/2014/08/11/success-in-the-city-events-enable-alumni-to-brush-up-personal-brand/#commentsMon, 11 Aug 2014 18:29:04 +0000http://www.oswego.edu/magazine/?p=6083This spring, the Oswego Alumni Association hosted Success in the City events in Syracuse, Rochester and New York City. At left, Sarah Peschel Testa ’86 of Manlius, N.Y., (standing) speaks with fellow alumni at the April event at the SUNY Oswego Metro Center in Syracuse. Each professional networking event featured alumni established in their careers to offer advice, critique resumes and to meet other alumni in their area. Alumni swapped tips and favorite Oswego stories over hors d’oeuvres and drinks.

Playing off of the NCAA’s March Madness, Oswego bracketology sets up a fun-spirited fundraising competition between classes of Graduates Of the Last Decade.

SUNY Oswego’s Graduates Of the Last Decade (GOLD) not only surpassed an initial goal of 200 donors, but also a super goal of 225 donors in the Fourth Annual March Matchness fundraising challenge.

Louis A. Borrelli Jr. ’77, an Oswego College Foundation board member and School of Communication, Media and the Arts advisory board member, agreed to donate $10,000 to The Fund for Oswego if 200 Graduates Of the Last Decade made a gift during March.

After reaching the 200 donor goal with only three days left, Borrelli offered to increase his gift to $13,000 if 25 more GOLD alumni made their gift during March Matchness. With Borrelli’s challenge gifts, March Matchness raised a total of $18,618 for The Fund for Oswego.

“I am not surprised The GOLD Gang (a.k.a. ‘younger and better looking’ alumni) met and then exceeded this challenge,” Borrelli says. “Our collective investment will be put to good use, and I hope this experience inspires them to continue their philanthropic support of SUNY Oswego.”

The Class of 2012 had the most participants, beating out last year’s winner, the Class of 2009, and second-place finisher, the Class of 2013, which staged an exciting late-game comeback and nearly took the lead.

“March Matchness is one of our most exciting and entertaining initiatives,” says Joy Westerberg Knopp ’92, director of annual giving. “This year, Lou used social media to challenge young alumni to step up their game, and our Graduates Of the Last Decade responded in record numbers. We had fun while raising money to support a broad range of programs.”

March Matchness created a flurry of exchanges between classmates and between classes, as friends called, texted and posted their challenges to social media. The fundraising campaign stirred some participants to share their fondest memories of Oswego in an attempt to become the Player of the Week.

“We like to give back to the place that gave us so much,” says Vanessa Vair Reitz ’06, who serves as the GOLD Leadership Council president.

Not only did she meet her husband, Justin Reitz ’07, at Oswego, Vanessa says a connection they made at an alumni event assisted them in buying their home in Buffalo, N.Y., and helped Justin start a new career as a realtor. “We understand the benefit of connecting with our fellow alumni,” she says.

“Many of us young alumni aren’t at a point in life where we can give a substantial amount of money to Oswego,” she says. “But, we made a gift and, more importantly, I made an investment of my time for March Matchness. I’m proud that we were successful in reaching not only our initial goal, but the second challenge as well.”

Now working at Old Mill Middle South in Millersville, Md., Vezer was named Western Anne Arundel County Teacher of the Year and is described in his nomination as “a truly dedicated educator who goes above and beyond… for his students.”

2. What did you take away from Oswego: Most of the teachers here chose Tech Ed as a second career and don’t have the background in theory and application that Oswego provided me. Tech Ed is more than bookwork; it’s product based.

3. Student clubs and events: We’ve held trips to the Baltimore Museum of Industry and the Visionary Arts Museum. Our SeaPerch underwater rover club placed 2nd and 5th at the U.S. Naval Academy last year. I run the Kinetic Sculpture Race and state award winning robotics clubs like Botball and the First Lego League as well at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation Festival.

4. Tell us more about the Chesapeake Bay Foundation Festival: The school-wide festival will host more than 150 student presentations and a dozen guests from around the county to speak about the health of the Chesapeake Bay. It helps raise awareness about pollution in our surroundings.

5. Proudest moment: I was interviewed for a state teaching conference video about making an impact on individual students’ lives (seen below).

6. Early success: I was writing statewide curriculum after just a year when I was 22. That’s when the value of my time at Oswego struck me.

7. Most rewarding part of the job: The students’ expressions. Seeing all of the fun they are having, while learning; of course.

—Tyler Edic ’13

]]>http://www.oswego.edu/magazine/2014/08/08/5909/feed/0Writer Makes Case for Support of Cambodian Childrenhttp://www.oswego.edu/magazine/2014/08/07/writer-makes-case-for-support-of-cambodian-children/
http://www.oswego.edu/magazine/2014/08/07/writer-makes-case-for-support-of-cambodian-children/#commentsThu, 07 Aug 2014 19:57:40 +0000http://www.oswego.edu/magazine/?p=5906Like others who hold SUNY Oswego diplomas, Anthony Karge ’08 has soared. His 8,560-mile journey has taken him to Phnom Penh, where he is communications officer, handling social media, newsletters and external communications for the Cambodian Children’s Fund.

Anthony Karge ’08 talks with some of the beneficiaries of the Cambodian Children’s Fund, a nonprofit for which he has worked since January 2013.

“I’m using journalism and creative writing,” Karge says, “to make concrete contributions in one of the most impoverished areas of the globe.” An example of his teamwork is a video he publicized showing a trash-filled lot transformed into a playground. (Check out the video at alumni.oswego.edu/magazine.)

A few months after graduation, Karge began his career at The Westport News, published twice weekly in a Connecticut town outside New York City. After helping the newspaper become an online outlet, he left for Patch.com, an AOL online news network. There, he managed freelancers, established websites and learned the ethos of 24/7 news.

“Oswego gave me experience in writing creatively and in writing news copy,” he says. “I got management experience on the job.”

Filled with wanderlust, Karge traveled as an undergraduate to Poland, the ancestral homeland of his mother, Barbara, and Thailand, where he became enamored of Asian culture. In December 2012, he left AOL to move to Cambodia. He applied for writing jobs and was already in transit when the invitation to interview came from his current employer.

“Modern media made it possible,” he says of the Skype interview that resulted in an offer, which he accepted and arrived in Cambodia with a job.

On campus in April for an Alumni-In-Residence visit with his father, James Karge, who also attended Oswego, Anthony advised students, “Stay on top of industry trends, and always keep learning after graduation.”

Oswego is a long way from home for Priya Ravindran ’09. She grew up near Mumbai (formerly Bombay), India, and left home after 17 years to earn two bachelor’s degrees in journalism and global and international studies at Oswego, picking up a minor in French along the way.

After earning a master’s at Fordham University in political science, Ravindran returned to India
to work as a research and documentation officer and program manager with Children’s Future India, a non-profit organization dedicated to the welfare of underprivileged children.

1) How you learned about Oswego:
I hadn’t heard of Oswego until I was at a college fair in India and an Oswego representative, Ryan Lemon ’00, was present.

2) From Bombay to Oswego:
Ryan was so friendly and welcoming; plus, Oswego offered me free room and board and a merit scholarship, so that was a huge factor, too. When I first came to Oswego, I wanted to become a news reporter. My mom coaxed me into taking a more “academic” major.

3) Your best travel tip:
I have so many! It really helps if you do your research about a culture first. Having a meal with a family is a great way of experiencing a new culture, but just having a coffee or tea in a cafe outside is a good way of relaxing and sinking into a culture.

4) How Oswego is different from home:
The cold! And coming from a city of 5 million, I was initially taken aback at the small size of the city.

5) Why Children’s Future India:
In India, I saw poverty firsthand. It wasn’t until my politics and international studies class at Oswego that I became passionate about working with an NGO. I chose Children’s Future India because I wanted to play a little part in an organization that works to better these children’s lives.

6) What’s next:
In a couple months I’m moving to Ukraine, and I hope to continue working for a similar organization there.

7) Why pick up the French minor:
I was exempt from the foreign language requirement since my first language is not English. I had done two years of French in India, but took French 101 on my adviser’s insistence. My professor Allen Stagl was amazing and so animated while teaching, he made me fall in love with the language.

8) How many languages do you speak:
My mother tongue, Tamil, as well as English, French and Hindi fluently. I’m currently learning Russian because it’s one of the official languages of the United Nations. I plan to learn Ukrainian as well.

9) Down the road:
Some day I would like to get into the United Nations and possibly move back to New York.

10) What is special about Oswego:
It’s such a close-knit community. The opportunities I had at Oswego, meeting people from all over the world, having the best teachers, working at the front desk at Hart Hall, reporting for WTOP, and volunteering for various community service projects, changed me as a person.

—Tyler Edic ’13

]]>http://www.oswego.edu/magazine/2014/04/11/gold-profile/feed/0Graduates Of the Last Decade: Kristin Quinn ’08http://www.oswego.edu/magazine/2013/12/26/graduates-of-the-last-decade-kristin-quinn-08/
http://www.oswego.edu/magazine/2013/12/26/graduates-of-the-last-decade-kristin-quinn-08/#commentsThu, 26 Dec 2013 17:43:13 +0000http://oswego.edu/magazine/?p=5226Kristin Quinn ’08, accustomed to conducting interviews, said it felt “weird” to be on the response side, talking about her two passions: 1. advocating for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis research and 2. writing.

A resident of Arlington, Va., Kristin is com­munications and publications director for the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation. After earning an Oswego degree with a double major in journalism and creative writing, she completed a master’s in newspaper and online journalism at S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, and moved to Washington, D.C.

1) How you wound up in D.C.:
When I got out of grad school, the job market was poor, but D.C. was insulated from the slump. When I got a job at a trade association magazine, my best friend from Oswego, Danielle Dills ’07, let me sleep on her couch.

2) How you moved up:
My first job, writing about the printing press industry, helped me build a resume, and from there I was hired to write about aerospace and defense technology for Gannett Government Media.

3) What you learned traveling for that job:
I was a lot more independent than I thought. In 2011, I covered a conference in Germany. I had never been overseas, so it was pretty scary. But it’s empowering to look back and realize I did that all on my own.

4) Now you interview high profile people:
I was excited recently to write about Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. But after years of interviewing people from all walks of life, I have become less intimidated by status. We are all the same, all trying to do our best.

6) Why you volunteer for ALS research:
First, ALS runs in my family. It took my grandfather and my aunt, and it is now affecting my mom. Beyond the personal, though, is just to let people know more about this fatal disease.

7) When you testified about ALS before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration:
Those running the hearings were concerned I would get emotional, so I switched into professional mode. It’s important to raise awareness that a cure is needed, and I wanted to give an articulate account of my experience. See Kristin’s testimonial video.

8) Those at risk for ALS:
ALS can affect anyone, anywhere, at any age. Chances are there is someone living with ALS in every community.

9) What people can do:
Get involved with fundraisers that help support research for a cure or that help patients with the high expenses of living with the disease.

10) Best Oswego memory:
Working into the wee hours of the morning at the Oswegonian down in the dungeon of Hewitt. We had a great team from the Class of 2008, and we always had a good time reporting campus news.

]]>http://www.oswego.edu/magazine/2013/12/26/graduates-of-the-last-decade-kristin-quinn-08/feed/0Program Eases Transition from ‘Backpack to Briefcase’http://www.oswego.edu/magazine/2013/08/20/4729/
http://www.oswego.edu/magazine/2013/08/20/4729/#commentsTue, 20 Aug 2013 13:13:22 +0000http://oswego.edu/magazine/?p=4729A program sponsored by the Oswego Alumni Association and Career Services Office helps students make the sometimes intimidating transition from college to career. Recruiters, local experts, and Oswego alumni presented workshops to help more than 100 students forge a pathway to success.

Keynote speaker Kevin Sutherland ’05, a member of the Graduates Of the Last Decade Leadership Council, suggested students take every opportunity to network and get their résumé out to as many people as possible, including alumni.

Renee Abstender Marchak ’94, personnel coordinator for Maxim Healthcare Services, shared interviewing advice with students at the Backpack to Briefcase conference last spring.

“We are family, this is it, Oswego!” Sutherland said. Sutherland is the budget coordinator for Tompkins County, where he has worked for three years.

Interviewing is nothing to sweat about as long as you’re prepared, explained personnel coordinator for Maxim Healthcare Services, Renee Abstender Marchak ’94. Marchak said she has an array of experiences with the interview process and applies the knowledge she gained at Oswego when interviewing future employees. “Oswego did so much for me,” Marchak said.

Tim Barnhart ’02 of Northwestern Mutual shared advice about “Financial Management and Surviving after Graduation” during the Backpack to Briefcase conference.

Students stood wall-to-wall to hear Tim Barnhart ’02, a member of the Oswego Alumni Association Board of Directors, explain with honesty and realism about saving money and understanding financial planning following graduation. “As far as the education that you get, and the work ethic I was taught, I wouldn’t take another school over this school,” Barnhart said of Oswego.

Barnhart explained to students how to begin saving money, manage student loans, and still have a comfortable lifestyle after graduation. While attending Oswego, Barnhart interned with Northwestern Mutual, the company where he is now a managing director. He said that without taking the internship with Northwestern Mutual and exploring his career options in college, he would have never found his dream job.

Michelle Rene Garcia ’06 in her professional photograph for The Advocate, where she is commentary editor.

Landing a job in Los Angeles after graduation, Michelle Rene Garcia ’06 continues to work for a cause she values. At The Advocate, a gay rights magazine, she began as a temporary hire and advanced to com­mentary editor.

“We’re on the front line of history,” she says. “In the seven years I’ve been here, I’ve witnessed a massive sea change in the way Americans view gay rights.” She notes the milestones of justice: a president who supports the freedom to marry and still gets re-elected; positive representations in the media, a dozen states legalizing marriage equality, and LGBT people, including celebrities and athletes, coming out to their families, friends and coworkers.

“Equality isn’t just an issue of the gay agenda or some lobbying group, a faceless ‘they.’ Now, it’s about someone’s son, or sister or best friend. It’s personal, and people are remembering that personal is political again.”

After graduation, Garcia, who was active on the Oswegonian and worked as a resident assistant, and her husband, Adam Campbell-Schmitt ’06, headed to L. A., where Adam, a broadcast major, works as a stage director and comedy writer.

Garcia, who majored in Journalism with minors in Political Science and Women’s Studies, says all her interests, education and experience have come together in her career and in the screenwriting she’s doing on the side.

“Thirty years from now, I can look back at this time and say: I was there. I was part of history.”

Nicole Castro Pursel ’09 prepares a meal as she learns the basics of French cooking in “boot camp” at the Culinary Institute.

We call it “serendipity” when dreams come true. Nicole Castro Pursel ’09 says she’s had a brush with that unexplainable good fortune in her career. After completing an internship at Time Warner Sports and earning her degree in journalism, she accepted an administrative assistant position at Wegmans in her hometown of Rochester.

One lucky day, she was asked to help out with the monthly “Wegmans Cooks” segment on Bridge Street, a Syracuse-based morning television show, where Chris Brandolino ’96 is one of the hosts. Pursel says all her experiences and education kicked in once she was suited up and on the set.

“My Oswego experience as an on-air talent for WTOP and my journalism background in gathering and presenting information clearly and accurately really helped.”

Inspired by her experience on Bridge Street, Pursel applied for a transfer from desk to kitchen, and she’s now an administrative cook for the Rochester-based retail grocer, working in the Liverpool store. With the head chef, she oversees food preparation, organizes ordering and helps train food workers.

“I love my job,” she says. “It’s a dream come true.” As for that cooking show of her own. Well, someday, perhaps. But for now, she and her husband, Robert Pursel, a teacher at West Carthage Elementary School, enjoy their Central Square home and reap the benefits of Pursel’s passion for preparing wholesome delicious food.